It is good to see that academic presses continue to publish primary sources in elegant and useful formats, even if the prices are elevated. Such is the case with Karen Racine and Graham Lloyd's annotated edition of James A. Brush's “journal” of his time in Mexico with Francisco Xavier Mina. Brush, a Scottish veteran of the Peninsular War once held by the French as a prisoner of war, joined Mina in Liverpool, so he was part of the expedition from the beginning. He stayed with the Spanish war hero turned freedom fighter until the very end, a period of 18 months. Unlike many Spaniards and Mexicans captured in the course of the expedition's collapse, he was not executed but was allowed to leave Mexico in 1819.Francisco Xavier Mina was the quintessential idealist warrior of the Romantic era. Born in northern Spain on the eve of the French Revolution, he became an ardent nationalist and despite his youth and lack of formal military training quickly rose to become one of Spain's foremost military leaders in the early stages of the struggle for Spanish liberation from Napoleonic rule. Captured by the French, he spent years in France as a prisoner of war. After his release and disillusioned with Fernando VII's autocratic turn, he launched an unsuccessful rebellion and then fled to England, where he shifted his attention to freeing Spanish America. Charismatic as well as brave, he commanded the respect of the international group of followers who accompanied him, first to Baltimore and then to Galveston, from where he launched his quixotic campaign to liberate Mexico. Landing near Soto la Marina in what is now Tamaulipas, his division penetrated as far south as northern Michoacán before the expedition fell completely apart near Guanajuato, where he was captured and executed in November 1817.Although the original manuscript is titled a journal and the editors retain that wording, the work is more in the nature of a recollection or memoir, something that the editors acknowledge in thus referring to it in their concise and utilitarian introduction. The structure of the manuscript, which is located at the Huntington Library, clearly shows that it was composed after the Scot's departure from Mexico. Among the problems with the text, the editors point out that Brush's dating of events is inconsistent; this and the typical problems of spelling do not take away from the manuscript's importance as the only firsthand account of Mina's expedition, especially as Brush is concerned with describing the people and places that he visited, providing a distinctive perspective on events during that stage of Mexico's independence struggle.Various elements of Brush's narrative speak to the way that the insurrection had descended into rivalries and conflicting interests. Brush repeatedly refers to the antipathy of insurgent leaders José Antonio Torres and Diego Noboa for Mina. On the other hand, Brush asserts that among the royalists Mina was much admired, so much so that his execution took place with his face covered, lest the soldiery resist executing someone whom they considered a military hero. The account also makes clear that poor training and organization were problems for both sides, which led to frequent desertions and defections.Aside from Brush's narrative, the editors have included three valuable appendixes and an excellent bibliography focused on Mina-related works. The first appendix is a set of documents that provide context and substantiation for Brush's writings. Of particular interest are the texts of four of Mina's proclamations, the portion of the Inquisition's interrogation of Father Servando Teresa de Mier dealing with his relationship to Mina, and various documents illustrating the popular culture side of the pro- and anti-insurgency causes. The second appendix is a table of known expedition members indicating place of origin and available details, which are often minimal or completely missing. The third appendix is a chronology of Mina and of Brush through 1824.Racine and Lloyd have produced a very readable text, and I have only a few quibbles regarding both factual errors and documentation. For instance, in mentioning some of the leading figures whom Mina encountered, they state that Manuel Mier y Terán later rose to general and had “a prominent role in the Mexican-American War,” but Mier y Terán committed suicide in 1832 (p. 15). They erroneously place the town of Croix—birthplace of Juan Bautista de las Casas, who led the first revolt against royalist rule in Texas in January 1811 (not 1812, as they state)—in Jalisco, though it was a settlement in western Nuevo Santander (now Tamaulipas) (p. 245n85). The editors are also inconsistent in providing citations within their annotations. None of this detracts from the overall value of the work, which for scholars of the period sheds new light on one of the more dramatic episodes in the Mexican War of Independence.
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Open Access
Jan 1, 2023
Daria S Panarina 
